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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Anthony Easton's Top Ten Art 2005
1. Allyson Mitchell Lesbian Sasquatches Paul Petro Toronto
Walking into the narrow spaces at Paul Petro, the three eight foot sasqutches, the fake fire, and the elaborate wall hangings seduce with well-crafted oddness. Thinking about the work fully, one realized the epic theory about gender, history, sexuality and personae that exudes. Best one-two punch of the entire year.
2. Justine Cooper. Trophies, Online at http://www.kashyahildebrand.org/newyork/upcoming/exhibition014.html
There is a certain thrill in the whole behind the scene shtick, w. its moody, theatrical lighting dramatizes cold museums. That is a relatively easy thing to do. The best thing about this one photo though, with its dozens of stags and sheep trophies, is how it refuses the differences between sports and science, the implications of taxonomy, and the aesthetics of death that permeates these places. It also makes it look like some kind of pagan temple.
3.Paul Freeman MFA Show, FAB Gallery. Edmonton
His repurposing of kitsch decorative elements, into transhuman horrors are politically and aesthetically radical.
4. Sammy Harkham—Poor Sailor
A small, smart, comic. Features Farmers, Pirates, Amputations and Axe work, exciting and solemn in equal measure, with some of the best uses of blankness and silence in recent memory.
5. Tabloid Photos, Daily Mail, Kate Moss
Amidst all the sound and fury about her as a bad mother, and the obviousness of supermodels doing drugs, critics forgot three things.
a) The photos themselves were well composed, with the coke in the middle, and Kate hovering over it, had enough of a crowded/blank, light/dark chicoursou. It was almost classical.6. Christian Patterson's Blog
b) The lighting, and the lo-fi paparazzi aesthetic, had a skuzzy charm, made even better with thoughts of ubiquitous surveillance culture.
c) The triumph of vernacular, digital photography. When camera phones and amateurs do the best celeb shots, there has been a seismic shift in the way of looking at the famous.
He is an emerging photographer, in the Shore/Eggleston vein, but one of the strongest of that sort. His blog regularly updates, but has a stern editing process, that doesn't overwhelm with thousands of things that look the same.
7. Mark Chamberlain Batman and Robin
The best thing about this work is that it is a fine art history of low art eroticism. Batman and Robin fucking has been a staple of the Tijuana bibles a few years after the first image, and there has been a concurrent shadow history of this eroticism ever since. Chamberlain comments on the clichés, the mirror stage stripping, and the tension of these two thoughts. A law suit made him famous, but the work is stronger then that.
8. Personal Alphabet No.3 by Jose Parla
A garish, sort of ugly, high end area rug, made of scrawled graffiti.
9. Sol LeWitt Installation AGO
The bad thing was that it was in the ersatz gift shop. The best thing about this winding rainbow is how over the top camp it was—Sol LE Witts move away from minimal rigor is stranger and stronger—and this is the wildest yet. Looked like it belonged on a teenage girls bedroom, to complete a unicorn and pink ruffle motif, and that is a good thing.
10. Danielle MacDonald, Ceiling Paintings, Toronto
A painter in her fourth year at OCAD, her functioning between sign and signifier work without the usual pomo theory claptrap. How she exchanges meanings between photographs and paintings, her colour sense, and her realism pushed into hyper-drive, made me excited about painting in a new way.
For everyone who had fun on the DMG bus last night (thanks to Von Bark for MC-ing the ride) there is more bus fun to be had next week, as Andrew J. Paterson will conduct Lucky 13 on the ride to AGYU for Fiona Tan's opening. Bus leaves AGO at 6:00, departs York U at 8:30 to return downtown. If you happen to be in Kingston this weekend look for Andy there too! He is performing monologues from MONO LOGICAL at Queens U tonight, and he will be in attendance for the launch of Gary Kibbins' incredible book, Grammar & Not-Grammar, edited by Andrew and published by YYZ Books. The launch will occur at the opening for Matt Rogalsky at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. Kibbins is brilliant (so is Andrew) and so is the book. This Rogalsky character sounds pretty interesting too.
More things happening! I was very lucky to be at Tin Tin Tin in February of 2004 for an early version of Maggie MacDonald's Rat King Opera. The full-fledged production is showing this weekend and it is SOLD OUT. arg.
Too bad I couldn't be in two places at once! I think I would have enjoyed the InterAcess opening last night. If anyone was there, please report! Finnish art is cool, the new InterAccess is cool, and so is the curator of this show, Nina Czegledy. I'm looking forward to the exhibit.
YYZ has a big show on about art and activism with a bunch of screenings and workshops. I'm very curious about this one, will make a post once I get to see the show.
The Quantal Strife Opening was great! And Sally requested that I post a satellite image of the approximate location where the artists (and their many admirers) can all be found, currently brawling over String Theory. (someone bitch-slapped me when I mentioned the possibility of 26 dimensions, so I left in a huff)
Hey I'm guest-curating a show at the Doris McCarthy Gallery with artists Scott Carruthers, Crystal Mowry, and Marc Ngui...It's going to be really good and you have to come and see it!
January 19 - March 5, 2006
Doris McCarthy Gallery (University of Toronto at Scarborough)
1265 Military Trail (UTSC campus)
Opening: Thursday, January 19, 6:00 - 9:00 pm
Free bus departs 401 Richmond St. W. at 6:30 pm
NOTE: there will be party favours on the bus
Catalogue Launch: Sunday, February 5, 2:00 - 5:00 pm
Free bus departs OCAD (100 McCaul St.) at 12:00 noon to AGYU, Koffler Gallery, Doris McCarthy Gallery UTSC and Blackwood Gallery UTM
For more information call 416.287.7007
or visit www.utsc.utoronto.ca/dmg
Later this afternoon Ann MacDonald and I are co-guest-lecturing about art writing in a class at OCAD. I've made my notes available online here, and I welcome all comments and complaints. As a special bonus, the charming and selfless RM Vaughan has agreed to let me post his prose poem, 7 Steps To a Better Artist Statement here.